Since carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) is much lighter than metal and has higher stiffness, carbon fiber reinforced plastic attracts attention as a next generation composite material and is used for weight-reduction of automobiles, aircrafts and the like.
Since a method of processing carbon fiber reinforced plastic is extremely complicated and is mainly automated, a large amount of CFRP scrap, which is waste generated after the manufacture of products, is generated and it is difficult to find a method of discarding or appropriately recycling the CFRP scrap.
In a representative method of recycling CFRP scrap, the CFRP scrap is cut into small pieces, followed by burning the pieces or making the pieces into master batch to be introduced into a compounding product. This method is not widely used due to complicated processes and low efficiency thereof.
In particular, when carbon fibers produced from CFRP scrap are subjected to extrusion, since the carbon fibers are tangled at an entrance of a side feeder into which the carbon fibers are introduced, there is a difficulty in introducing the carbon fibers or performing a process. Although a method of introducing carbon fibers in the form of powder by pulverizing the carbon fibers may be considered to prevent such a tangle of the carbon fibers, there is a problem in that the powder-type carbon fibers are not sufficient to realize stiffness and other mechanical properties as compared with fiber-type carbon fibers.
In addition, there is a problem in that typical composites using CFRP scrap have non-uniform and negative mechanical properties, as compared with composites prepared using carbon fiber materials.